PORT ROYAL, Pa. – Jared Esh has been oh-so close to tasting victory at the Port Royal Speedway in Weikert’s Livestock 410 sprint car action.
Saturday night, his hard work and effort finally paid off, as Esh came from the ninth starting position on a hot night and held off a hard-charging Blane Haimbach while nursing a broken shock for his first career 410 sprint car win.
“I don’t even remember half the race honestly,” said Esh, surrounded by a mob of friends, family and fans before receiving a congratulatory phone call from his father in victory lane. “This is just so cool and I’m just really blessed and happy to be sitting here. I knew I could do it.”
Tyler Bear and Tyler Reeser made up the front row, with Bear jumping out to the early lead after taking the green flag. However, A.J Flick, who started third, quickly showed he would be a factor as he pulled behind Bear exiting turn two and used his momentum to slide under him entering turn three to take the lead and pace lap one.
The red flag would come out one lap later, as Anthony Macri continued a string of bad luck when he made contact in turn three with Kyle Reinhardt on the bottom of the speedway.
Macri would spin up the track and get on his side and briefly got upside down after Jeff Miller had nowhere to go and hit his car.
All drivers walked away unharmed.
When green flag action returned to the speedway, it was Flick once again sprinting out to the lead. However, things were heating up behind him. Kyle Reinhardt moved into the second position with a slide job on Bear in turns one and two and Dylan Cisney and Esh entered the top five as well.
One lap later, it looked like Cisney was coming to make it back-to-back victories as he passed under Bear for the third position at the line. Esh would slide under Bear for the fourth position in turns one and two on lap four.
With the leaders entering lap traffic on lap seven, Esh was able to overtake Cisney for the third position with a slide job in turns one and two. Wagner would follow suit the following circuit with a slide job of his own to overtake Cisney for the fourth position.
Esh pulled up to the tail tank of Reinhardt and the two briefly jockeyed for position on lap nine, however the caution would fly for a slowing Reeser on the front stretch, wiping out a large lead for Flick and negating Esh’s pass for second.
On the restart, Reinhardt showed his muscle as he tried a slide job on Flick entering turn 1. He would pull even with him as the two cars exited turn two and they would drag race into turn three, with Flick using the high side to pull ahead once again.
However, Esh used a head of steam exiting turn four and passed Reinhardt for second before ducking under Flick at the line.
Esh tried a slide job of his own entering turn one and he took the lead from Flick, only for Reinhardt to overtake Flick as well and pull even with Esh exiting turn two.